How Many Calories? Daily food thread for the dieting chazzers

Was thinking making a food thread might help a few people I know having a harder time making choices/ figuring out calorie counts. If people could post what they ate and the calories it might give people some better ideas.. or we might be able to give each other other/different/better suggestions.

June 2nd

Chocolate chip all bran bar - 130 cal
Whole wheat baguette (5 cm slice) - 160 cal
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
Iceberg lettuce (1 cup) - 8 cal
Skim milk mozz cheese (1 oz) - 72 cal
croûtons (4 tbsp) - 70 cal
Red onion (1 slice) - 10 cal
Cucumber (few slices) - near 0 cal
Ranch dip (1 tbsp) - 30 cal
Chocolate pretzel snack pack - 100 cal
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
salad dressing (2 tbsp) - 80 cal
Woody's raspberry - 99 cal
Chicken breast (skinless boneless) - 118 cal
Chicken breast (skinless boneless) - 118 cal
Waist watchers blueberry cheesecake - 70 cal
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
Marinade - 100 cal
Water - 0 cal
Water - 0 cal

Daily total - 1165 cal

There are things I could make 'better' like less dressing or marinade, but so far I am pretty happy keeping my calories around 1200 a day and so far haven't felt deprived in any way. The low cal alcohol and cheesecake is really helping with that though. It's mainly me snacking better, or at least thinking before I do. I also realized I never really read the labels of anything before for the calories.

Weight this morning 164. Weight I started at on the morning of May 29th 168.

keep in mind mafia, if you cut back your calories too much it can make loosing weight just as hard as eating too many calories (as ive been told a bajillion times lol.)

good idea, i keep one on my facebook notes like this, but here would be cool too.

How can I figure out how many calories I'm suppose to have a day?

Ok, here goes:
Cheerios - 160 cal
Panda Express - 600 cal (yikes! I don't eat out, hardly ever, but my friend was in town and wanted to try it so I caved >.<)
Green beans - 25 cal
Piece of chocolate - 50 cal (Whoa. I did not realize how many calories a piece of chocolate had in it! Gotta start weening myself from chocolate...)
Gummy vites - 15 cal
Gatorade - 50 cal
LOTS of water - 0
later tonight I will have a little bowl of life cereal - 160 cal
Total - 1060 cal

Weight this morning - 135 lbs, for the first time in over a year

Mafia, this was a really good idea for a thread. I was kinda paying attention to calories, but I'll be paying a lot more attention now

I am on 2200 cal a day for my weight loss regime. So far I am sticking just under it and feeling great. I have lost 1kg which is 2.2lbs! Yay for me!
It is true though, you don't really feel deprived once you get used to it.

Mere and Fluffy have a thread going on their diets. in the first page was a link I used. I was told 2200 cal to maintain weight. 1500 to lose weight.

Here is the link Calorie Need - Nutrition Guide for Women

This is the other thread if you want to read it http://www.chazhound.com/forums/t99933/

Thanks Mafia. I must've missed that link. lol

I've been doing pretty good, I think, but I suck at counting calories. I've cut back on portions and started eating little healthy snacks during the day instead of just eating one huge meal late at night. I cheated pretty bad last night and had a massive hamburger and brown ale for dinner. I should be having around 1700-ish calories and I'm sure that burger was at least 600. Probably more.

So far today, I've had:

Breakfast:

1 egg - 70 cal.
2 slices toast (bread) - 120 cal.
1 tablespoon of butter - 80 cal.
1 cup of orange juice - 120 cal.

Lunch -

Low fat microwave dinner - 200 cal.
2 slices of bread - 120 cal.
1 soda (the last soda in the house, no more after today!) - 140 cal.

Snack:

1 cup grapes - 105 cal.
2 homemade koolaid popsicles - 40 cal.

Total so far I'm at 995 calories for the day. The next thing I eat will be dinner, which is already planned:

Dinner:

1 cup of spaghetti - 260 cal.
(2 oz of noodles - 210 cal.
and 1/2 cup sauce - 50 cal.)
2 slices of bread - 120 cal.

Snack:

Fruit smoothie - 70 cal.

Total for the day will be: 1445 cal.

According to the calculation, at my weight I'm supposed to have 2100 calories a day to lose one pound a week. I'm trying to keep myself under 1500 calories a day.

i also used to use fitday.com to keep track of calories, fats, carbs, etc. you input the food and it keeps track of everything...oh exercise and calories burned and everything too

I've heard of fitday.com Pam, sounds neat! I'm going to give it a try to keep track of everything.

it can be a bit of a pain at first since you're inputting all new foods, but after a few days, you will have several already inputted so it's not so hard because you probably tend to eat a lot of the same things every day so it's just a matter of putting in the quantity

I had a fitday account ages ago in university. I liked it.. but found it a pain at times. It's working more easily to write them down myself, and google calories/amounts of stuff that I don't know. Seems to be faster than sticking to one specific site as not every site has everything I am looking for fr food types.

June 3rd

Chocolate chip All bran bar - 130 cal
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
Slimfast shake with skim milk (12 oz) - 210 cal
Blackberries and strawberries (to go in shake) 1/2 cup max - 30 cal
Honey mustard salad dressing (1 tbsp) - 60 cal
Red onion (less than one slice) - negligibly small cals
Diet pepsi - 0 cal
Mrs Fields choc chip cookie - 160 cal

590 cal. No idea what I'm going to have for dinner.

The more I look into it, the more it seems that eating too few calories can actually inhibit weightloss. If I were looking to count calories to loss some pounds...I'd actually be more inclined to stick closer to 2000. I think the chances that it'll stay off would be higher as well.

Don't know if you're doing exercise, but of course any cardio/muscle building you do would speed up the weight loss so you could still eat 2000+ calories a day, workout every day or every other day and drop weight as though you're just eating 1600 calories a day.

But I would look into the "too few calories" thing. I don't have sources available to back it up...it's just something I've been hearing a lot of lately. Might be worth looking into.

I wish you success!

I personally think it's semi-true. If you eat too few calories, it's true that your body goes into survival mode and starts milking every calorie it can possibly get out of that food. BUT you'll still be losing weight. I don't care how fuel efficient your engine is...if you don't put enough fuel in the tank, it's gonna run dry. So you lose weight.

But, you may be losing weight at the same rate you would lose it at if you ate an extra 300 calories or so. And once you get off your diet, the weight tends to come back on quicker. Your body is still in starvation mode, so it's making those 2,000 calories a day count more like 2,300 a day. You may gain back a good amount of weight before the starvation switch turns back off.

This..

you have to drop calories to loose weight. You must NOT eat just over 3500 calories to loose a pound. So if you only eat 100 calories less a day you will need 35 days to loose a pound.

So how do you know if your body has gone into starvation mode? Are you hungry all the time, Low on engery, or you just stop losing weight? Or are there any signs at all?

IME you get lethargic.

That reminds me, has anyone ever seen "The Biggest Loser" cookbook? It features the actual recipes they use on the show. It's great for anyone on a diet. Fabulous-looking food with insanely low calorie count. For example, it has a big egg white and veggie omlette with less than 150 calories. If a low calorie count inhibited weight loss, I don't think they would be using it on a show focused on weight loss.

I'm certainly not advocating that anyone go on a starvation diet or anything. But I do think that the "too few calories makes weight loss harder" thing is blown a bit out of proportion.

I agree Gempress, I think it's a bit overblown as well.

Yes, you will go into starvation mode if you cut yourself down to 800 or 900 or even 1,000 calories everyday. But I think cutting down to say, 1500 calories, is more than fine (and there are days I go over a little anyways) especially when my diet is filled with wholesome fruits, vegetables, a bit of good fats and oils, and I am getting proper nutrition.